Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Backlinks that we have if they are 404?
-
Hi All,
Backlinks that we have if they are 404?
Open site explorer shows 1,000 of links and when I check many are 404 and those are spammy links which we had but now the sites are 404
I am doing a link profile check which is cleaning up all spammy links
Should i take any action on them? As open site explorer or Google still shows these links on the searches.
Should we mention these URL's in disallow in Google webmaster.
Thanks
-
If you delete the page (URL) with the link (clickable words that takes the visitor to another URL), Google will eventually recognize that the URL no longer exists and drop it from the index. That may take anywhere from a few days to a month or more.
Once the URL is out of the index, whatever links were on that URL won't count against you.
You may use the URL removal tool in Google webmaster tools to try to speed up the process of removing the URL from the index. There is no need to use the disavow tool for a URL that resolves to a 404 page.
-
Thanks
To be more clear here is the details
1. We have spammers who first post irrelevant content on our site
2. We delete them in 1 or 2 hrs and within this time
3. They spam many other sites with the post link of our on those sites
Now the link they posted is deleted and 404.
i have 4 questions
a. Many of these links that are on spam sites are 404. Should i take any action
b. All these pages are 100% made just to spam or even the sites are made to spam. Should i take any action
c. Some sites itself are down and guess they are shutdown as they were made just to spam. Should i take any action
d. Should i disallow all such links
I havent received any penalty notice but my traffic has dropped by 70%
-
Your question is a little unclear but I think you're saying that you have backlinks that point to certain pages and now you have 404'd those pages. If this is the case then Google treats those links as dead. According to John Mueller of Google, links going to 404'd pages don't count towards PageRank.
-
If the links are coming from URLs that no longer exist, then think of them kind of like ghosts. Their likenesses are still showing up on reports to give you a scare but their bodies aren't around and can't do you any harm. Eventually they'll fade away from the reports any they'll be nothing more a distant memory. So, no, non-existent links don't need to be disallowed.
Sorry, I was watching a ghost movie last night.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Search Console Showing 404 errors for product pages not in sitemap?
We have some products with url changes over the past several months. Google is showing these as having 404 errors even though they are not in sitemap (sitemap shows the correct NEW url). Is this expected? Will these errors eventually go away/stop being monitored by Google?
Technical SEO | | woshea0 -
What do you do with product pages that are no longer used ? Delete/redirect to category/404 etc
We have a store with thousands of active items and thousands of sold items. Each product is unique so only one of each. All products are pinned and pushed online ... and then they sell and we have a product page for a sold item. All products are keyword researched and often can rank well for longtail keywords Would you :- 1. delete the page and let it 404 (we will get thousands) 2. See if the page has a decent PA, incoming links and traffic and if so redirect to a RELEVANT category page ? ~(again there will be thousands) 3. Re use the page for another product - for example a sold ruby ring gets replaces with ta new ruby ring and we use that same page /url for the new item. Gemma
Technical SEO | | acsilver0 -
Cookies disabled pointing to a 404 page
Hi mozzers, I am running an audit and disabled cookies on our homepage for testing purposes, this pointed to a 404 http response? I tried on other pages and they were loading correctly. I assume this is not normal? Why this is happening? and could this harm the site's SEO? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Taysir0 -
Intermittent 404 - What causes them and how to fix?
Hi! I'm working on a client site at the moment and I've discovered a couple of pages that are 404ing but producing a 200 OK response. However, I have checked these URLs again and some are now producing a 404 Error response. No changes have been made (that I'm aware of) so it appears that the URLs are returning both 200 OK and 404 Error responses intermittently. Any ideas what could cause this and the best solution? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | daniel-brooks0 -
Backlinks that go to a redirected URL
Hey guys, just wondering, my client has 3 websites, 2 of 3 will be closed down and the domains will be permanently redirected to the 1 primary domain - however they have some high quality backlinks pointing the domains that will be redirected. How does this effective SEO? Domain One (primary - getting redesign and rebuilt) - not many backlinks
Technical SEO | | thinkLukeSEO
Domain Two (will redirect to Domain One) - has quality backlinks
Domain Three (will redirect to Domain One) - has quality backlinks When the new website is launched on Domain One I will contact the backlink providers and request they update their URL - i assume that would be the best.0 -
Why is Google Webmaster Tools showing 404 Page Not Found Errors for web pages that don't have anything to do with my site?
I am currently working on a small site with approx 50 web pages. In the crawl error section in WMT Google has highlighted over 10,000 page not found errors for pages that have nothing to do with my site. Anyone come across this before?
Technical SEO | | Pete40 -
Forum profile section or signature line as backlink
Hi, Forum profile section or signature line as backlink VS Answering a question and giving a related post URl as the answer is better? I have the above question on which would be better Would a signature or website name in the profile is valuable then a link to your site where information is available? Does Google consider both as spam/blackhat? Thanks
Technical SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Are 404 Errors a bad thing?
Good Morning... I am trying to clean up my e-commerce site and i created a lot of new categories for my parts... I've made the old category pages (which have had their content removed) "hidden" to anyone who visits the site and starts browsing. The only way you could get to those "hidden" pages is either by knowing the URLS that I used to use or if for some reason one of them is spidering in Google. Since I'm trying to clean up the site and get rid of any duplicate content issues, would i be better served by adding those "hidden" pages that don't have much or any content to the Robots.txt file or should i just De-activate them so now even if you type the old URL you will get a 404 page... In this case, are 404 pages bad? You're typically not going to find those pages in the SERPS so the only way you'd land on these 404 pages is to know the old url i was using that has been disabled. Please let me know if you guys think i should be 404'ing them or adding them to Robots.txt Thanks
Technical SEO | | Prime850